Told by the Death's Head Part 23

The next morning Master Meyer gave me to understand that the duties of hospitality would not be extended beyond one day; and that I would better seek a lodging more suitable to the station of a young man of quality. He would be glad to have me visit him frequently; and if I wanted to be amused Rupert, who was perfectly familiar with all the ways of the city, would be delighted to be my guide.

I did not see the lovely Agnes again alone; so I made up my mind to write, and tell her how much I thought of her. I question now, whether any of the numerous letters I sent her through Rupert, ever reached her hands.

From that day, there was no end to amus.e.m.e.nts. Rupert was the very lad to make me acquainted in the shortest time with all the resorts of entertainment, and many companions of questionable reputation. I was introduced to a Spanish hidalgo; a Scotch laird; a Brazilian planter; a Wallachian boyar--that their patents of n.o.bility grew on the same genealogical tree with my own I suspected from the very first. They were, individually and collectively, hearty drinkers, reckless gamblers, and fearless fighters. That the money they squandered with lavish hand was not obtained through honest means I was confident, and I was equally confident that the entire crew looked on me as their own special prey.

But, I taught them a thing or two before very long!

At our drinking-bouts, I always left them under the table. While with the Templars I learned a valuable secret: how to drink all the wine you wanted without becoming intoxicated. I shall not reveal this most valuable secret here. I have an idea, that when the court sentences me, I may win its clemency by revealing what I learned from the _dornenritter_--the secret which would be of incalculable value to all mankind--

"We shall see about it--if the time ever comes when sentence shall be pa.s.sed on you!" observed the chair.

To out-drink me, resumed the prisoner, after this digression, was impossible, though they tried their best to do so. Had they succeeded in stupefying me with wine, I am quite certain they would have robbed me of the note for two-thousand thalers, which I always carried with me. I suspected that the series of drinking-bouts had been arranged to enable Rupert to steal the note; had he succeeded, Master Meyer would have been relieved of paying what he owed me. But my secret enabled me to frustrate their plans.

Nor did they succeed in getting hold of any of my doubloons. The first time we engaged in a game of dice, I detected their scheme to cheat me; the dice were loaded. As I had played that sort of game before, I astonished and discomfited my companions by the frequency with which the sixes always came on top when I threw. They, and not I, lost money. If they attempted to quarrel with me about my good fortune, they found that, skilled though they were in the pugilistic art, I could take care of myself. I learned some wrestling tricks while I was with the haidemaken, and they served me well in my bouts with those notorious fighting-c.o.c.ks. I was not the one to get worsted. But, no matter how angry I might be, I always took good care not to injure any of them seriously; had I done so, they would very soon have had me behind prison bars.

I was also extremely careful in my intercourse with the women I met.

My white dove accompanied me wherever I went, but I never spoke of her to anyone. I would tell my companions, after they had dragged me from one den to another without succeeding in attaching me to any of the alluring nymphs, that I had no eyes for any woman but my charming betrothed, to whom I had vowed eternal fidelity; and that I was obliged to adhere all the more rigidly to my vow, because Rupert, being the brother of my sweetheart, might betray me to her were he to see me paying attention to another girl.

Then the student would swear that a "whole ditch full of devils" might fetch him (a favorite oath in Hamberger Berg polite society) if he so much as mentioned my name to his sister. I might flirt with whomsoever I chose, he would not betray me. But, I persisted in turning a deaf ear to the fascinating damsels I continued to meet night after night in the various drinking shops we frequented. I knew very well that a tidy wench would be more apt to get hold of my carefully guarded note of hand than would any of my brawling comrades.

I wasn't going to let anyone steal it; I had decided that I would take the money home to my poor old parents. The two-thousand thalers would make of them real gentle folk; father could buy a little fruit farm; and a fur coat for himself; and the old mother might promenade to church in a silk mantle, bought with the money her son had given her--

"And which he obtained by selling stolen church property,"

sarcastically interjected the chair.

"The end justified the means," quickly, but with due respect, retorted the prisoner, whereupon the prince laughed heartily.

The mayor's face became crimson; he said in a tone of reprimand: "That phrase was not devised by the pious Jesuits to excuse the man who steals church property, and sells it to obtain money for his family.

The prisoner will continue his confession."

In this manner I pa.s.sed three months. The day before the one on which my note fell due, I spent in my lodgings sleeping quietly. That night I accompanied my friends, as usual, on a round of the different taverns we were wont to frequent. We scattered the night patrol; smeared the windows of several professors' houses with wagon grease; sang rollicking ditties in front of the houses in which we knew there were pretty girls; belabored all the Jews we found abroad at that hour, and kept the entire "Berg" in a state of excitement, until long after midnight. We marched arm in arm, forming a line across the street that reached from house to house, to the "Three Apples"--a famous tavern at that time--where, for a wager, we drank all the liquid medicines in the store of an itinerant quack doctor, who had stopped there for the night.

It is just possible it was the medicaments that confused my brain--though I am convinced they were perfectly innocent of any intoxicants. Rupert became so helpless, he lay like a log on the tap-room floor; the innkeeper ordered the rest of us out of the house.

As it was too early to go home, the Scotchman suggested that, as Rupert was not with us, we should go around to Master Meyer's, where he and the rest would keep watch in the street, while I made a "window-call" on my betrothed.

"That's a bright idea of yours!" I exclaimed. "How am I to get up to my pretty Agnes' window? Her room is in the top story, in the gable. I am not a moo-calf that can stretch its neck to the luthern."

"Why are we your friends?" chivalrously demanded the Spanish hidalgo.

"Are not we here to help you? We will form a pyramid: three of us will support two others on their shoulders, and you will form the apex.

You can then rap at your lady-love's window, and we will remain immovable, while you exchange kisses with her."

The quack's medicaments had, as I said before, confused my brain; I agreed to the silly plan suggested by the hidalgo, and we turned our unsteady steps toward the Meyer residence.

When we arrived in front of the house, the first thing we did was break the lantern which swung from a rope stretched across the street, in order that the darkness might screen us from the sight of pa.s.sers-by.

The acrobatic feat of building a human pyramid was easily accomplished; and I was very soon standing on the shoulders of two comrades whose feet in turn rested on the shoulders of the three forming the base.

I had no difficulty in reaching to the sill of the bow-window; that room, I knew, opened into Agnes' sleeping-chamber. I had rapped once on the gla.s.s--cautiously, for I did not want to rouse any one in the lower rooms; and was about to repeat the knock, when the fiendish bellowing I had heard once before made the blood run cold in my veins.

My comrades under me cried out in terror:

"The moo-calf is coming!"--and the next instant I was hanging by my fingers to the sill of the bow-window, with my legs wriggling like those of a frog caught on a hook. I could hear my valiant comrades scampering for their lives down the street. I did not want to call for help; for, if old Meyer saw me dangling in front of his window, he would believe me to be a burglar, and shoot me without ceremony. I could not swing myself up to the window-sill, for the sash was closed; so, I hung there, and tried in vain to find a projection below me, on which to rest my toes.

Meanwhile, the bellowing monster came nearer; I could already hear it snorting under me. I hung motionless as an executed criminal on the gallows, hoping the calf might not notice me.

It was a vain hope! The brute came directly toward me, and when I looked down, I saw the hideous horned head stretch upward--nearer, nearer. I could feel the rough tongue lick the soles of my shoes--then my ankles. I drew up my knees, and lifted myself as high as I could; but the elastic neck stretched out longer--the horrible tongue licked higher. I felt as if my trousers were being brushed with a curry-comb, and I thought to myself every moment: "Now the devil will seize me!"

I wriggled and kicked in vain--nearer, and nearer, came the long horns which threatened to spit me on their sharp points. Fiendish laughter seemed to come from the red throat, as the tongue licked higher and higher. It reached my thighs--then my waist, and before I could guess what might happen, the little bag hanging from my belt, in which I carried the note for two-thousand thalers, was snapped from its chain, and disappeared down the brute's gullet.

My fear vanished with the note. Not even Satan himself should take it without a struggle!

Heedless of the moo-calf, as well as of the danger to my legs, I let go my hold on the window-sill and dropped. Fortunately my mantle carried me like a parachute through the air, so that I was not even shaken by a too sudden contact with the pavement.

I now stood face to face with the dreaded moo-calf. It was not a creation of the imagination, but a veritable monster, and a most hideous and frightful one too, at that! It had four huge legs and feet like an elephant; a neck two fathoms long, at the end of it an enormous head with horns; the long red tongue hanging from the open jaws was covered with scales shaped like saw teeth.

"You may be the devil himself," I cried, drawing my sword, and stepping up to the monster, "but you must give me back my purse."

Quick as thought, the long neck was drawn in, and the head thrust at me with a force that sent me staggering backward several feet. A faint-hearted man would most likely have taken to his heels, but I was too enraged at my loss to think of seeking safety in flight.

What! had I purloined the _dornenritter_ treasures for this?

_They_ were now in Master Meyer's possession, and the two-thousand thalers were in the stomach of this moo-calf! All this pa.s.sed like lightning through my brain, as I picked myself up from the pavement, where the brute had flung me, and again approached him.

"Either you take me with you to h.e.l.l," I exclaimed hoa.r.s.ely, "or I'll tear my purse from your entrails!"

Again the monster drew in his neck, spread his legs apart as if to brace himself, and gave utterance to another marrow-freezing roar. I remembered the dose of pepper I had received from him, and held the corner of my mantle in front of my face; this s.h.i.+elded me also from the sparks of fire he blew from his nostrils.

I was prepared for the second a.s.sault, and when the brute again shot out his head toward me, I dropped nimbly to the pavement, and the head swept over me into the empty air. Before it could be drawn back, I was on my feet, and buried my sword to the hilt in the creature's breast.

What was my surprise and horror to hear a despairing moan--not from the moo-calf's throat, from its belly--an unmistakably human voice.

"I am killed--murdered!" cried the voice, as the moo-calf fell in a heap to the pavement; and from the shapeless leather envelope staggered a human form--my comrade, Rupert, the student.

The blood was spurting from a wound in his breast--my sword had pierced clean through him!

"So, you are the moo-calf?" I exclaimed in amazement, surveying the wounded man leaning, gasping for breath, against the door of his father's house.

"The devil take you," he groaned. "Why didn't I kill you at once, when you were hanging from the window, instead of fooling with you? Now, the old man may play the moo-calf himself, and scare customers from the Jews' quarter! It's all up with me! Ho, Agnes! Mettze! Come quick!

Summon the patrol! Sound an alarm!"

I saw a female form appear in the bow-window. It was Agnes. When she recognized Rupert's voice, she began to shriek "Murder! murder!"

I turned to fly, but Rupert, who had sunk to the pavement, weak from the loss of blood, seized hold of my leg--even in death he thought only of revenge! I jerked my leg from his grasp with such force, that he fell backward, striking his head against the door-post.

He did not stir again.

I did not stop to search in the skin of the moo-calf for the promissory note; I took only time enough to catch up a handful of mud from the street, and fling it into the face of the girl, who was leaning from the window shrieking "Murder!" into the night.